Issue #160 Loop WP

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Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #160 of Loop WP!

Last week was about WooCommerce in light of the latest Shopify Editions.

This week, we discuss AI, which I mentioned was lacking in WooCommerce, but could that be about to change? And Automattic is “returning to Core”.

Let’s go! 👇

The “A Team”

Did you spot this email’s subject line? Along with the section title above, it might bring to mind Mr. T (B. A. Baracus), who was part of the “A Team”. 👇

Or, if you’re a bit younger than me, you might recognise Mr. T from his famous Snickers advert. 🤣

The “A.I. Team”

Anyway, I digress, Automattic now has its version of the “A Team”, with the formation of the “WordPress AI Team”.

Last week, I mentioned that we currently rely on third-party developers, such as Brendan O’Connell, who has developed a proof-of-concept AI Chat Agent for WooCommerce using n8n.

🤔 Will this no longer be the case?

I also discussed two of Shopify’s most significant changes, which are related to AI, and they are substantial:

• A new way to work with themes and the ability to build blocks and themes with AI.

• One of the most helpful innovations (it’s not perfect) got a significant upgrade. “Sidekick” (Shopify’s AI assistant) now employs multi-step reasoning and delves deeper to provide data-driven strategies based on an in-depth analysis of your business.

✨ The AI tools are integrated into the platform, eliminating the need for external tools and incurring no additional costs.

Where would that leave WooCommerce, and with Automattic’s reduced contributions, would WooCommerce fall further behind?

💡 (We will return to this later.)

A Touch of Cynicism?

🤔 Call me a cynic, friend, but when I first saw the following post from Automattic on X, I thought:

“This announcement is timed to coincide with the WordPress AI team's announcement, and AI can impact all the properties they mention in that post.”

It's a commercial decision, not a community decision. 👇

Now, I know that might not necessarily be the case, but when TechCrunch published their article covering Automattic’s “return to Core,” about halfway into the article, it looks like I might not be so cynical after all:

A True “Return to Core”

🤔Aside from a commercial decision and being AI-related (which I made a case for above), it’s hard to determine what has changed in Automattic’s decision to return to contributing to Core (and other areas); the official post on Automattic’s website doesn’t shed much light.

Other questions arise:

• How long is the return?

• How many hours and where are the contributions going?

• Will the course of the ongoing court cases cause Automattic to pull away again?

💡 We’ve already seen Automattic’s (and Matt’s) recent attempts to reconcile with the community met with mixed reactions, and rightly so.

The class action lawsuit is also not going away, so is Automattic doing all it can to help itself ultimately? 🤷‍♂️

Encouraging Final Thoughts?

For now, friend, I’m going to air on the side of some much-needed positivity (and I’m excited for the future):

• Automattic’s contributions (for now) have skyrocketed.

• The AI Team is off the charts in terms of talent, and the team itself has me excited, never mind what they hope to achieve.

• There will be a public roadmap ensuring innovation happens in the open, guided by community values, and built to core standards.

⚡️ In a Q&A on the new AI blog, the question was asked: “What is the mission and why launch the team now?” and the answer (maybe not a commercial design after all):

🚨 There are two video interviews below if you want to learn more from the AI Team themselves.

WooCommerce AI

Remember what I said earlier about WooCommerce?

Hopefully, the return of Automattic contributions and the establishment of a new AI Team can only be good news for WooCommerce as it tries to keep up with Shopify. 🙏

That’s It For This Week 👋

Last week, I mentioned that I’d been experimenting with this newsletter (I continue to do so), and this email had a little more fun in it.

Recently, I’ve been providing more links around SEO, AI, and Marketing to help plugin/theme developers and service providers stay up-to-date with the latest ways to market and sell their products.

These links have proved popular, so I will continue to add those in.

The most popular links have been:

• Plugin Owners - Struggling to Market Your Plugin? These tips could help. (Tom Pestridge)

• Want to Stay Relevant - Build a brand for WordPress: An Analysis of AI Overview Brand Visibility Factors (75K Brands Studied). (Ahrefs)

See you next week! 😀

Weekly WordPress News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

• Congratulations! - Modular DS raises €615K in funding. (Modular DS)

• The “Dream Team” - The WordPress AI fightback begins! (WordPress)

• Interview - The Future of AI for WordPress.org with James LePage. (Remkus de Vries)

• New Player in Town - A New Era of Commerce With WordPress. (fluentCart)

• Supporting Contributors - Help Build the WordPress Ecosystem. (SponsorMeWP)

• Selling WordPress Products? - What happens when your buyer is a bot? (Jono Alderson)

• Ollie WP Academy - A completely free, comprehensive WordPress block theme development course that'll teach you to build for the future of WordPress. (Mike McAlister)

• Agency Evolution - Jake Goldman Talks Agency Mergers and Rebranding. (The WP Minute)

• Fatal Errors - WooCommerce 9.9 Release is Delayed. (WooCommerce)

• More Depth, Less Fluff - Claude System Prompt Leak: Your articles and posts need more factual depth, clarity, and modularity. (Hanns Kronenberg)

• View Transitions - This plugin implements support for cross-document view transitions in WordPress. (Felix Arntz)

• Reclaiming Voices - Is WordPress losing its way? (Sam Alderson)

• Webmasters.fm - The Path to Success as a YouTube Creator. (Brian Coords)

• Google Stitch - Something web designers should worry about? (WPTuts)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, please reply, and I will respond as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,